Fol­low the Scent of Sweet­bread

Like most things in Hawai‘i, the treats one finds to munch on are as var­ied as the peo­ple who’ve come to live in th­ese Is­lands. From the Por­tuguese, Hawai‘i has adopted the malasada (a hole-less donut typ­i­cally coated in sugar) and sweet­bread (loaves of sweet, soft bread) as din­ing sta­ples.

Here on the Big Is­land, some bak­eries have taken the sweet­bread recipe to a whole new is­land-in­spired level, with fla­vor­ings that in­clude trop­i­cal fruits and taro.

In Hilo, check out Low’s In­ter­na­tional Food, or head south to Pu­nalu‘u Bake Shop, the south­ern­most bak­ery on the is­land and in the U.S. You can also get malasadas filled with fla­vored creams like mango and lilikoi.

Pu­nalu‘u Bake Shop is lo­cated on Route 11 in Na‘alehu. It can also be found on­line at www.bakeshophawaii.com.